A Story About Zombies...

This is the opening to the rough draft of a story I came up with on Friday, when I watched Grindhouse (referring to the Planet Terror portion), Supersize Me, Requiem For a Dream, and almost got to see Shaun of the Dead. This is likely to be a novel of some kind. This portion, of course, is only the first page or so.

The commercial began with a shot of a man and a woman kissing on the beach. It was a passionate kiss. Their tongues were entwined like the double helix of DNA, and not the way it was shown in science class, but as it actually is entwined, coiled up over and over again to the point where a two-molecule-wide ribbon is somewhat visible when pulled out of a glass. Their bodies were chiseled far beyond the “greek statue” level, and were closer to the level of a comic book superhero, with at least twenty more muscles per square inch than is on a real human being. This kiss lasted for a full twenty seconds of the thirty-second commercial. The last ten seconds was devoted to both of the participants, now standing up, holding up pill bottles and speaking in unison.

“Try Burnex, and you won’t have to do anything else to lose weight again!” they both said with sickening smiles. While they spoke, pictures of what looked like the same two people, in the same style of swimsuit, and about 500 pounds more of fat.

“Available without a prescription,” said a disembodied voice within the space of the last second. It was clearly a sped-up recording of some ad executive who realized at the last minute that this was a somewhat important detail. If Alexander wasn’t comfortable on his couch, he’d have turned off the tv after such a worthless commercial. He’d have turned it off two hours earlier, in fact, the first time he saw it, but that was five minutes after he turned on the television, so that was out of the question.

The second time he saw the commercial, twenty minutes later, he’d smelled out the end of the commercial break. Alex had developed a sixth sense about when commercial breaks would end. It didn’t take much skill to know when a commercial break was coming, but it took a finely-tuned watcher to know by instinct when the programming was coming back. The third time, he was starting on a bowl of potato chips, and he wasn’t about to finish them in his room, because that would be pathetic.

Alex lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment. He had a computer that was about two years old, but it had a broadband connection. That was all that mattered to Alex. As long as he had enough processing power for his games, he’d have Shirley along. The computer sat on a desk which he’d placed so that it would face the tv. The only reason he didn’t normally sit at his computer while watching tv was that his desk chair was cheap, like all of the furniture in his apartment, and it made his ass hurt. The couch was relatively soft, and could support a butt very well.

“Today in medicine, we are profiling weight-loss drugs,” said the Brad Hudson, the anchor of the local news station. This was the moment that Alex was waiting for. Not necessarily to see the report, but just to take notes on how much it focused on a particular diet pill. Alex managed to survive on his own by supplementing a fast-food job with his blog, in which he made fun of the local newscasters. Brad Hudson, a vapid man with a tan about ten shades past orange, was Alex’s favorite target. “Thirty percent of America is overweight or obese.”

Alex went over to his computer to start up his entry. He looked up to see the obligatory montage of fat people, and then the diet pills, people exercising. Alex was now positive that this was about a diet pill. Brad hadn’t said anything that actually counted as news yet. And sure enough, he’d started up the intro.

“Now, Sfargadyne Pharmaceuticals has come out with a drug that they claim is the ‘magic pill’ that everyone has been searching for. It’s called Burnex. We sat down with Sfargadyne’s director of research and development to talk to them about what they claim is the ‘miracle pill.” As Brad segued into the interview, Alex burst out in laughter. He was at least grateful that the segment hadn’t begun with Brad making out with some chick on the beach. The man would have probably insisted on wearing a speedo...